Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

“Nah. She’d never go for it. She’s so impractical. I said to her last week, I said, ‘You know that front porch step is loose? Springing up from its nails every time you walk on it wrong.’ She said, ‘Oh, Lord, yes, it’s been that way,’ as if Providence had decreed it. As if nothing could be done about it. They’ve got leaves in the gutter from way last winter but leaves are natural, after all; why go against nature. She’s so impractical.”

Porter himself was the most practical man Macon had ever known. He was the only Leary who understood money. His talent with money was what kept the family firm solvent — if just barely. It wasn’t a very wealthy business. Grandfather Leary had founded it in the early part of the century as a tinware factory, and turned to bottle caps in 1915. The Bottle Cap King, he called himself, and was called in his obituary, but in fact most bottle caps were manufactured by Crown Cork and always had been; Grandfather Leary ran a distant second or third. His only son, the Bottle Cap Prince, had barely assumed his place in the firm before quitting to volunteer for World War II — a far more damaging enthusiasm, it turned out, than any of Alicia’s. After he was killed the business limped along, never quite succeeding and never quite failing, till Porter bounced in straight from college and took over the money end. Money to Porter was something almost chemical — a volatile substance that reacted in various interesting ways when combined with other substances. He wasn’t what you’d call mercenary; he didn’t want the money for its own sake but for its intriguing possibilities, and in fact when his wife divorced him he handed over most of his property without a word of complaint.

It was Porter who ran the company, pumping in money and ideas. Charles, more mechanical, dealt with the production end. Macon had done a little of everything when he worked there, and had wasted away with boredom doing it, for there wasn’t really enough to keep a third man busy. It was only for symmetry’s sake that Porter kept urging him to return. “Tell you what, Macon,” he said now, “why not hitch a ride down with us tomorrow and look over your old stomping ground?”

“No, thanks,” Macon told him.

“Plenty of room for your crutches in back.”

“Maybe some other time.”

They followed Rose around while she washed the dishes. She didn’t like them to help because she had her own method, she said. She moved soundlessly through the old-fashioned kitchen, replacing dishes in the high wooden cabinets. Charles took the dog out; Macon couldn’t manage his crutches in the spongy backyard. And Porter pulled the kitchen shades, meanwhile lecturing Rose on how the white surfaces reflected the warmth back into the room now that the nights were cooler. Rose said, “Yes, Porter, I know all that,” and lifted the salad bowl to the light and examined it a moment before she put it away.

They watched the news, dutifully, and then they went out to the sun porch and sat at their grandparents’ card table. They played something called Vaccination — a card game they’d invented as children, which had grown so convoluted over the years that no one else had the patience to learn it. In fact, more than one outsider had accused them of altering the rules to suit the circumstances. “Now, just a minute,” Sarah had said, back when she’d still had hopes of figuring it out. “I thought you said aces were high.”

“They are.”

“So that means—”

“But not when they’re drawn from the deck.”

“Aha! Then why was the one that Rose drew counted high?”

“Well, she did draw it after a deuce, Sarah.”

“Aces drawn after a deuce are high?”

“No, aces drawn after a number that’s been drawn two times in a row just before that.”

Sarah had folded her fan of cards and laid them face down — the last of the wives to give up.

Macon was in quarantine and had to donate all his cards to Rose. Rose moved her chair over next to his and played off his points while he sat back, scratching the cat behind her ears. Opposite him, in the tiny dark windowpanes, he saw their reflections — hollow-eyed and severely cheekboned, more interesting versions of themselves.

The telephone in the living room gave a nipped squeak and then a full ring. Nobody seemed to notice. Rose laid a king on Porter’s queen and Porter said, “Stinker.” The telephone rang again and then again. In the middle of the fourth ring, it fell silent. “Hypodermic,” Rose told Porter, and she topped the king with an ace.

“You’re a real stinker, Rose.”

In the portrait on the end wall, the Leary children gazed out with their veiled eyes. It occurred to Macon that they were sitting in much the same positions here this evening: Charles and Porter on either side of him, Rose perched in the foreground. Was there any real change? He felt a jolt of something very close to panic. Here he still was! The same as ever! What have I gone and done? he wondered, and he swallowed thickly and looked at his own empty hands.

"Help! Help! Call off your dog!”

Macon stopped typing and lifted his head. The voice came from somewhere out front, rising above a string of sharp, excited yelps. But Edward was taking a walk with Porter. This must be some other dog.

“Call him off, dammit!”

Macon rose, propping himself on his crutches, and made his way to the window. Sure enough, it was Edward. He seemed to have treed somebody in the giant magnolia to the right of the walk. He was barking so hard that he kept popping off the ground perfectly level, all four feet at once, like one of those pull toys that bounce straight up in the air when you squeeze a rubber bulb.

“Edward! Stop that!” Macon shouted.

Edward didn’t stop. He might not even have heard. Macon stubbed out to the hall, opened the front door, and said, “Come here this instant!”

Edward barely skipped a beat.

It was a Saturday morning in early October, pale gray and cool. Macon felt the coolness creeping up his cut-off pants leg as he crossed the porch. When he dropped one crutch and took hold of the iron railing to descend the steps, he found the metal beaded with moisture.

He hopped over to the magnolia, leaned down precariously, and grabbed the leash that Edward was trailing. Without much effort, he reeled it in; Edward was already losing interest. Macon peered into the inky depths of the magnolia. “Who is that?” he asked.

“This is your employer, Macon.”

“Julian?”

Julian lowered himself from one of the magnolia’s weak, sprawling branches. He had a line of dirt across the front of his slacks. His white-blond hair, usually so neat it made him look like a shirt ad, struck out at several angles. “Macon,” he said. “I really hate a man with an obnoxious dog. I don’t hate just the dog. I hate the man who owns him.”

“Well, I’m sorry about this. I thought he was off on a walk.”

“You send him on walks by himself?”

“No, no…”

“A dog who takes solitary strolls,” Julian said. “Only Macon Leary would have one.” He brushed off the sleeves of his suede blazer. Then he said, “What happened to your leg?”

“I broke it.”

“Well, I see that, but how?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Macon told him.

They started toward the house, with Edward trotting docilely alongside. Julian supported Macon as they climbed the steps. He was an athletic-looking man with a casual, sauntering style — a boater. You could tell he was a boater by his nose, which was raw across the tip even this late in the year. No one so startlingly blond, so vividly flushed in the face, should expose himself to sunburn, Macon always told him. But that was Julian for you: reckless. A dashing sailor, a speedy driver, a frequenter of singles bars, he was the kind of man who would make a purchase without consulting Consumer Reports . He never seemed to have a moment’s self-doubt and was proceeding into the house now as jauntily as if he’d been invited, first retrieving Macon’s other crutch and then holding the door open and waving him ahead.